


What Happened NEXT

by weakinteraction



Category: Loki: Agent of Asgard
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 04:17:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12951114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: Verity after the end of #17: an epilogue, and an origin story.





	What Happened NEXT

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/gifts).



Verity Willis always sees the truth.

Now, though, she sees nothing: there is no truth left. Just endless empty whiteness, forever. Her best/only/completely untrustworthy friend has just disappeared through a door that isn't there any more.

Should she follow him? _Can_ she follow him? The four simple letters he carved in the unreality -- "NEXT" -- are slowly fading away. Where does that lead, at the end of all that is?

Loki said that there were other versions of him out here: on a patchwork planet in its own little planet--

* * *

\--and, as fast as thought, she is there.

A starless, moonless sky. And the ground--

The ground itself is a lie. It does not belong here, is not from this universe. She wishes she had real superpowers, that she could fly above the ground to avoid its treachery.

But in front of her is Loki. Not any of the Lokis she'd met, not even snarling, mocking, terrified King Loki, from the future that would never happen now. This was a _simpler_ version of him, an enemy battling a team that doesn't resemble any Avengers line-up she's ever been aware of, but whose identity as Avengers is undeniable.

She remembers what Loki had said about the gravity of stories. And then she realises: even gravity is a lie on this world. And then she _can_ fly.

"Who are _you_?" asks Captain America, slowing down from superspeed for a moment to look up at her. His sister, the Iron Witch, hovers in mid-air, keen to hear her answer.

"Er, a friend," Verity says, carefully omitting any information about _whose_ friend.

Suddenly, there is a crack of thunder. Verity looks to the source of the sound, expecting to see Thor. And there is _a_ Thor, but it isn't Loki's brother. She knows without being told that this is only one of many Thors, the enforcers of God-Emperor Doom's will. But as the afterimages of the flash of lightning fade from her vision, she sees that this Thor is not alone: God-Emperor Doom is here. Others are with him: the sheriff, and the God-Emperor's niece. No, his daughter.

Verity can feel the rules of this reality firming up, lies becoming truth around her. The ground becomes real, gravity reasserts itself, and she falls. "Ow!"

When she looks up again, she sees Captain America kneeling before Doom. "This affair need not concern you, my lord. A mere local matter."

"I care not for your petty dispute," Doom says. "I have already made clear that I will recognise as Baron whoever can impose order on any of the domains of my world." He glances at Loki -- also kneeling, the surest sign Verity has had yet that this isn't the real him -- for a moment. "Somehow, I doubt that 'order' is even in this one's vocabulary. I am here on a weightier matter."

"Name it, my lord," Captain America says, but Doom ignores him.

Verity realises that Valeria is pointing straight at her. "It's her, dad. The readings we detected, they're coming from her."

He turns to Valeria. "You did the right thing to bring me here."

"I would grant this mortal a boon," Doom says to the assembled heroes and villains. He steps closer, kneels next to Verity, who has not managed to get back on her feet yet after her fall. "I remember you," Doom says, his voice a whisper. He is telling the truth. Whatever has happened since they last met, there is ... continuity for Doom, in a way that there isn't for the others. Not even Valeria, who had been able to see her when she was invisible. "My boon is this: leave here, now, and I will not end you. There can only be one whose _will is_ on this world."

* * *

Without warning, she is back in the endless whiteness.

Stories have gravity. So what is antigravity? Doom's narrative rejecting her as impossible. Nonsensical. Out of continuity. Non-canonical.

But gravity, the _idea_ of gravity is still true. She was wrong, before: some things remain true, even here. The mathematics she learned will always be true, proof after proof derivable from an infinity of possible axioms, even when there is no one left to do the proving.

But there is someone left, isn't there? She is here.

And if some of those mathematical systems happen to describe universes like the one she came from?

There is a door in front of her again, but Verity understands now that in truth the door is inside her own mind.

She steps through it.

* * *

She derives the existence of a Loki, carrying a staff whose curved ends encircle a glowing blue gem with phenomenal powers.

She derives the possibility of his losing the staff, of it falling into the hands of the Avengers.  
`  
INT. HELICARRIER. DAY.`

` LOKI is pacing inside the cell.`

` VERITY fades into existence. She is slightly transparent, like a ghost.`

` LOKI`

` Interesting trick. But I don't see how it's going to help you interrogate me.`

` VERITY`

` You don't remember me?`

` LOKI  
[warily]`

` Should I?`

` VERITY`

` I ... don't know.  
`  
* * *

She derives the existence of a Loki who is the master of all magic, who can tell any story, the Sorceror Supreme of a new universe. And if he had to lie, cheat and steal his way to that position? Well, that's just what Loki does. What he _is_.

But there is more, always more.

* * *

 **Title:** A Terrible Slash on Midgard's Internet  
 **Chapter:** 1/?  
 **Author:** DefinitelyNotLoki  
 **Rating:** PG-13 for now, might be higher later  
 **Pairing:** Thor/Loki

The Thunder God looked at his more slender brother, his mighty thirst for vengeance dulled by the insistent tug of the bonds of their shared history.

He understood now. He could see how everything that their father had done, that he had once seen as just, even merciful, had only served to worsen his brother's torment.

Thor looked at Loki with compassion in his eyes, and saw that his brother recognised the emotion, even through the years of misunderstanding and regret.

"Thor--" the dark-haired (in his current form, at least) god said.

Thor let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

* * *

Verity plunges into universe after universe, story after story, and all of them are true, and none of them are true, and for the first time she can remember, _it doesn't matter_.

* * *

She is back in the empty whiteness -- the uninked page, the unexposed film, the zero-bytes file. But now she can see the real truth: that _everything_ is true. She can see _through_ the blinding light, that within itself it contains the possibility of _everything_. Here, there and everywhere, not just rigorously self-consistent mathematical systems but mythologies held together entirely by the power of a good story. _Everything_ is true. Some day -- quite soon, she thinks, if time even really passes here -- new storytellers will emerge, able to see further, imagine better than Doom's paltry planet assembled from the endings of stories that have already been told. Universe after universe will blossom from possibility into true existence. But even when that happens, all the possibilities will still exist.

"Thrilling, isn't it?" The new voice seems female, and for a moment, she wonders if this is Loki's Moon Queen aspect, returned, but when she turns around it is clearer that this is someone stranger still.

"Who _are_ you?" Verity asks.

"I am the Never Queen. I exist ... here. Beyond the end of what is, is what could be. And I am the ruler of this domain. I am a universal constant that can never be determined. A story that can always be embellished by its next teller."

Verity looks at her, and knows that something has changed. She can tell that everything the Never Queen says is true: not only using her powers, but from all the experiences she has just had. But if it is, then it should hurt just to look at her, for she is more than she has said: she is every lie that has ever been told. But it feels right, natural.

The impossible door opens again.

Loki hasn't changed a bit. Same lopsided deceiver's smile, same helmet with one horn shorn off.

It was always possible that he would come straight back here, and so one of him has. But Verity can tell that he is as aware of all the possible other hims -- and hers -- as she is.

"Hello, you two," Loki says. "Or should I say, 'Hello, you'?"

Verity looks at him. Then at the Never Queen, who looks back at her. And then, for a dizzying moment, she is looking at herself.

"All my possible origins are true," Verity and the Never Queen say in unison, because they are one. "They have to be."

"And you _did_ just watch me create and uncreate myself," Loki says.

"The gravity of stories," the Never Queen says slowly, and then Verity asks, "Did you plan this?"

"It would be good if I had, wouldn't it?" Loki says, his lopsided smile widening. "Having a friend who existed beyond all-that-is would probably be a really helpful thing if I ever found myself in a tight spot in the future, after all."

"So what are you escaping?"

"The same thing as always," Loki said. "Fate. The end of everything."

"I'm beyond that now," Verity says. "I always have been," the Never Queen adds.

"I'll see you again, I'm sure."

All around her, an infinity of doors open, and Loki steps through all of them.


End file.
